Overcoming fear of approaching women

Here’s the most frustrating thing about the fear of approaching beautiful women: you know logically that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

It’s just a tiny feminine woman. She can’t hurt you. It’s so unlikely that some knight in shining armour will appear and hurt you. The chances of anyone pointing and laughing are pretty slim too. Even if they did, that wouldn’t hurt you either.

Nevertheless, there’s still there’s something that paralyses you when the pretty girl walks past. Something that roots your feet to the floor and floods your mind with excuses instead of an opening sentence.

You’re well aware that this woman could turn out to be your future wife, or the mother of your children, if only you had the nerve to introduce yourself.

Yet, the fear is too strong. So, you just let her walk out of your life forever without ever finding out.

I know the feeling because it happened to me all the time.

There were so many women I would have loved to talk to, but I never had the balls to do it. I’d tell myself they were probably bitchy, or probably had a boyfriend or were probably in a hurry. The truth was I was scared.

The main reason I was scared was because I didn’t believe it would go well. I was stuck in this mindset that girls only go for guys that are rich or good-looking, so I couldn’t picture any gorgeous girls wanting to talk to me.

Another factor was that I didn’t know what to do. How are you meant to be confident at something you’ve barely ever succeeded at before?

Thankfully, I learned there are many steps you can take to improve your confidence and build the courage to talk to the women you like.

I began studying self-development and reading articles from websites like TSB magazine and would implement the actions they suggested.

The first contains my favorite mindset shifts for putting your fear into perspective and adjusting your attitude towards approaching women. The second contains a set of actions to enhance the bravery muscle in your brain, giving yourself the mental strength to approach that beautiful woman when she walks by.

By remembering these mindsets and taking these actions, you can reduce your approach anxiety and start enjoying the dating life you deserve.

Let’s crack right into them…

6 mindset shifts to help reduce your approach anxiety

Remind yourself these six facts every day until they become embedded in your brain.

1. I’d be a great boyfriend for anyone

Have you ever considered what makes you a great romantic option for beautiful women?

I challenge you to write down 50 reasons why you’d be a great boyfriend for anyone. This number is purposefully high, so your brain is forced to think really hard about your best qualities.

These can be superficial qualities, the best parts of your personality, or basic things like your working arms and legs (not that this necessarily matters).

The first thing on your list is that you were brave enough to approach her.

If you can’t think of 50 awesome things, you’re allowed to add parts of your life that you promise to improve on. The fact that you’re working on yourself definitely counts as an awesome feature.

Once your list is complete, you’ll be armed with 50 reasons to approach that beautiful woman when she waltzes past.

2. There’s $10,000 in your pocket

If you approached a woman to give her a $10,000 cheque, would you be worried whether she accepted it?

Well, if you’re high-value enough to be able to complete your ’50 reasons’ list, you can consider yourself worth way more than $10,000 to a beautiful woman. Most women would take the man of their dreams over a measly $10K. A fun, intelligent, successful, loyal partner is arguably worth at least ten times that.

With that in mind, always approach beautiful women with the mindset that you’re there to give something to her. It could be something as small as a laugh, or a cute moment. Maybe it’ll develop into something bigger like a loving relationship. Whatever she’s willing to receive.

If you approach with the intention of giving something to the girl, rather than hoping to get something, you’ll be less nervous about the outcome.

3. It’s not rejection. It’s lack of chemistry

Time to write another list. This time it’s the traits you’re looking for in a romantic partner.

It’s OK to have physical features on there, but hopefully you’ve included parts of her personality too. What would she need to ensure you have perfect chemistry?

With this list completed, you can wave goodbye to the concept of ‘rejection’ for good.

The fear of rejection stops so many men from speaking to women they’re attracted to. This stems from the fact they’re sold on a beautiful woman before they even speak to her. They’re seeing their approaches as pick-up attempts, which can either be accepted or rejected.

Now you have your list of what you’re looking for in a woman, you can stop seeing your approaches this way. You’re not trying to pick her up, you’re exploring whether there’s chemistry. If it doesn’t go well, there wasn’t enough chemistry. No big deal. You won’t have enough chemistry for romance with most women you meet.

Maybe this concept seems a bit woo woo for you, and you refuse to believe that being told to ‘go away’ is not a rejection. That’s fair enough – and it happens to the best of us. But, even in this situation, it’s not ‘you’ she’s rejecting. It’s the small snippet of your personality you showed during that approach, so there’s nothing to get to upset about. If one person doesn’t like a certain part of your personality, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. More likely than not, there’s just a lack of chemistry.

4. It’s a numbers game

We all like to believe that we can get any girl that is ‘in our league’ but this isn’t true. There will be a lack of chemistry with most people you meet. Finding a woman that likes you really is a numbers game – and that’s nothing to be ashamed off.

If there were 20 beautiful woman in a bar and one had an amazing gift for you, would you feel guilty finding out who had it? Or would you approach each of them until you found it?

Too many guys go home empty-handed from bars because they give up or get too drunk before they find the girl they would have had chemistry with.

5. Fear means ‘this matters’

People tend to interpret the physical symptoms of fear (increased heart rate, heavy breathing, sweat) as a sign they should avoid the situation.

If a bear has broken into your house, that is the case. Yet, in situations that can’t hurt you, these are signs of nerves, not fear. You’re nervous that you might fail, because you’re in a situation that matters.

Running away from the situation means you fail by default. Instead, you should recognize these symptoms as your body revealing you’re in a situation that matters.

These are the cases when you should feel the fear and do it anyway.

6. It feels better than not doing it

If you’re never approached a beautiful woman before, you’ll have to trust me on this one.

Telling a girl she’s beautiful and finding out there’s no chemistry always feels better than not doing it. Getting told to ‘go fuck yourself’ feels better than not doing it.

If you do it, you conquer your fears, you do the right thing and you probably earn the respect of all the people around you. If the woman was hot enough, they were probably all thinking about doing the same thing. (That’s if they even bothered to watch you, which they probably didn’t. More on this later).

If you don’t do it, you’re telling yourself (the one person who actually knows you) that you’re not good enough, you feel bad for pussying out and you spend the rest of your life not knowing what would have happened. That’s surely worse than any rejection a woman can give you.

5 Actions You Can Take To Improve Your Bravery

It takes willpower to make courageous decisions. Willpower is controlled by the prefrontal cortex, which studies have shown can be strengthened like a muscle. Here are five actions you can take to strengthen this part of your brain.

1. Get plenty of sleep

Your brain has a limited amount of willpower. It drains with every bold decision you make and replenishes during sleep.

To give yourself the best chance of asking your crush out, get plenty of rest and do it as early as possible in the day.

The same goes for working out, eating healthy or making any sort of important phone call.

2. Give yourself proof, not promises

The fear of what other people will think is another key factor stopping people approaching beautiful women.

You probably know that most passers-by won’t care, and definitely that no-one will do anything.

After all, you’ve seen what happens when others do something out of the ordinary in public. People typically look up for a couple of seconds, see that it doesn’t affect them, then go back to worrying about their own lives.

Still, your brain needs proof not promises. You need to experience for yourself how nothing bad will happen before you believe it. Try screaming at the top of your lungs in a public place. Notice how people stare for three seconds, then turn back around, and let this empower you to speak to women even when others are in her vicinity.

The best way to give yourself proof not promises is to approach a pretty girl. This should seem much easier after the yelling exercise. The more women you approach, the easier it’ll become next time. This is another reason why it always feels better than not doing it.

3. Approach within five seconds

The longer you wait between wanting to do something and doing it, the more time you give your brain to become polluted with excuses.

There are hundreds of things that could happen when you hit on a beautiful woman, and it’s impossible to prepare for all them, so you’re better off beelining towards her, saying ‘excuse me’ and calibrating from there.

5. Put yourself in scary situations all the time

Whether you’re skydiving, public speaking or flirting with pretty girls, it’s the same part of the brain that needs to provide willpower.

Whatever you’re doing, you still need the strength to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’.

Studies have shown that the more you work this part of the brain, the stronger it becomes. It’s just like a muscle. That’s why you hear so many motivational speeches about ‘expanding your comfort zone’.

Putting yourself in scary situations is not only the best way to make yourself braver, it’s also the easiest way to create a truly memorable life.

Use these golden nuggets of advice

These are the nuggets of advice that changed my life, and they can do the same for you, but only if you choose to use them. Nobody ever got better with women just by reading about bravery.

You also have to leave your house, find lovely women, feel the fear and approach them anyway.

There’s no way around this.

You can learn more about how I went from a lonely loser to a happy dude with a healthy dating life in my book The Thrill Of The Chase.

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About Joe Elvin
Joe Elvin is a dating/relationships blogger currently travelling the world living as a digital nomad. His book ‘The Thrill Of The Chase’ explains how learning to truly enjoy singledom helped him to dramatically improve his dating life.

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